Light Bloom ruins games. I can't think of one game where I have said "wow that light bloom really looks good". It is a cheap effect, similar to the "lense flare" in photoshop. This taints twilight princess for me in a lot of ways. I might skip the release, and score Baten Kaitos Origins and Fire Emblem instead.

I seem to be the only one in the world who actually likes the Bloom effect and for the life of me don't know why. It looks cool and kinda looks like HDR lighting. Its mean to compare it to lense flare.

Actually all of those screens are conducive with what I've been seeing while playing the game. The older shots are the darker areas and bloom isn't nearly as prominent there, but in the newer shots, the reverse. The game definitely has some bloom in it, but not enough to warrant me gouging my eyes out with a pencil. All in all, I'm liking the story line quite a bit, with the shift from human to wolf and back again. Although I have to be honest, I really loved the cel shading in Windwaker, and I was hoping that they would continue in that direction with the series.

lordnikon,
Since this is an old thread started before the release of twilight princess, I'm assuming you eventually purchased and played through or at least part of twilight princess. Did the light bloom ruin it for you?

I only paid attention to the light bloom in the twilight realm and I felt it helped set that area apart in terms of a visual style. The effect was used elsewhere but I didn't notice it nearly as much. It never ruined the game for me as there were many high points to the visuals that outweighed the downsides.

I own Twilight Princess yes. However I have not been able to play it yet. I own roughly 1,350 games. So I try not to pressure myself into playing one game or another, otherwise it starts to turn into a job. I am behind on Zelda. I can't play Twilight Princess until I play through every other Zelda game. The last Zelda game I played was the NES original, way back in the day, which I never beat.

I was always a Sega guy back in the day. Nintendo never really clicked with me back then. I still have not been able to get all crazy over Mario, or some of Nintendo's other mascots. I like them, but I don't love them. Metroid is the one exception, where I am borderline fanatical about the games. Metroid Prime 1 & 2 are some of my favorite games of all time.

I have tracked down all of the Zelda games, and plan to play through them in their various releases on the GameCube. Unfortunatly I havn't started doing this yet hehe. So it will be a while before I actually get to Twilight Princess.

Light bloom really really bothers me. It's current application in games is unatural and ruins the experience for me. What developers essentially do is try to blur out the visuals giving the illusion that it looks better. All they are doing is hiding the game more. Squint at any game for a minute or two while you are playing and you will see what I am talking about. Light Bloom in games essentially generates this effect.

basically a cg visual effect to give objects more shine and reflective, organic properties. sometimes it's exaggerated like in Twilight Princess and highly noticeable, but i wouldn't say it's so overwhelming it detracts from the experience. as mcmonkey mentioned, and i will agree: it adds to the ethereal quality of the twilight realm and also adds some nice surface effects in other areas of the game.